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UKRAINE

Minute’s silence for French journalist killed in Ukraine

Journalists and staff of Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Paris and across the world held a minute of silence on Thursday to remember their colleague Arman Soldin who was killed earlier this week in Ukraine.

Published: 12 May 2023 08:47 CEST
Minute's silence for French journalist killed in Ukraine
French video journalist Arman Soldin was killed by rocket fire near Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine. Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP

Soldin, AFP’s video coordinator in Ukraine, was killed on Tuesday when an AFP team came under fire by Grad rockets while they were with a group of Ukrainian soldiers near Bakhmut, the epicentre of the fighting for months.

“Arman represented the very best of AFP,” the agency’s global news director Phil Chetwynd told staff ahead of the minute of silence at midday GMT.

Hundreds of AFP staff observed the minute of silence at Paris headquarters and from bureaux around the world via video conference.

Soldin, 32, was an “unbelievably dedicated journalist who believed his work could make the world a better place, he was in Ukraine because he believed in that”, added Chetwynd.

The death of Soldin brought to at least 11 the number of journalists, fixers or drivers for media teams killed since Russia invaded Ukraine more than a year ago, according to advocacy groups.

Tributes to Soldin poured in from France and Ukraine as well as from the rest of the world.

French anti-terror prosecutors said Wednesday they were launching a war crime investigation into the death of Soldin, a French citizen born in Bosnia.

It will be handled by the OCLCH, an investigating unit specialising in crimes against humanity and hate crimes, and will seek to determine the exact circumstances of Soldin’s death, the prosecutors said.

AFP “is at the disposal of prosecutors” to assist in their investigation, chief executive Fabrice Fries, said Thursday.

The agency also needed to “take care of the family” and “of the team which is in Ukraine and which went through this tragedy”, he added, saying a cell of psychological experts would be set up to help.

He said that the missions by AFP’s Ukraine team to the eastern front had been “suspended for a few days” but would then resume.

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POLITICS

Macron warns ‘mortal’ Europe needs credible defence

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday warned that Europe faced an existential threat from Russian aggression, calling on the continent to adopt a "credible" defence strategy less dependent on the United States.

Published: 25 April 2024 13:41 CEST
Macron warns 'mortal' Europe needs credible defence

He described Russia’s behaviour after its invasion of Ukraine as “uninhibited” and said it was no longer clear where Moscow’s “limits” lay.

Macron also sounded the alarm on what he described as disrespect of global trade rules by both Russia and China, calling on the European Union to revise its trade policy.

“Our Europe, today, is mortal and it can die,” he said.

“It can die and this depends only on our choices,” Macron said, warning that Europe was “not armed against the risks we face” in a world where the “rules of the game have changed”.

“Over the next decade… the risk is immense of (Europe) being weakened or even relegated,” he added, also pointing to the risk of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Macron returned to the same themes of a speech he gave in September 2017 months after taking office at the same location – the Sorbonne University in Paris – but in a context that seven years on has been turned upside down by Brexit, Covid and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Macron champions the concept of European strategic autonomy in economy and defence, arguing that Europe needs to face crises like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine without relying on the US.

He urged Europe to be more a master of its own destiny, saying in the past it was over-dependent on Russia for energy and Washington for security.

He said the indispensable “sine qua non” for European security was “that Russia does not win the war of aggression in Ukraine”.

“We need to build this strategic concept of a credible European defence for ourselves,” Macron said, adding Europe could not be “a vassal” of the United States.

He said he would ask European partners for proposals in the next months and added that Europe also needed its own capacity in cyberdefence and cybersecurity.

Macron said preference should be given to European suppliers in the purchase of military equipment and backed the idea of a European loan to finance this effort.

Macron also called for a “revision” of EU trade policy to defend European interests, accusing both China and the United States of no longer respecting the rules of global commerce.

“It cannot work if we are the only ones in the world to respect the rules of trade — as they were written up 15 years ago — if the Chinese and the Americans no longer respect them by subsidising critical sectors.”

Macron is, after Brexit and the departure from power of German chancellor Angela Merkel, often seen by commentators as Europe’s number one leader.

But his party is facing embarrassment in June’s European elections, ranking well behind the far-right in opinion polls and even risking coming third behind the Socialists.

The head of the governing party’s list for the elections, the little-known Valerie Hayer, is failing to make an impact, especially in the face of the high-profile 28-year-old Jordan Bardella leading the far right and Raphael Glucksmann emerging as a new star on the left.

Macron made no reference to the elections in his speech, even though analysts say he is clearly seeking to wade into the campaign, with his speech reading as a manifesto for the continent’s future.

“The risk is that Europe will experience a decline and we are already starting to see this despite all our efforts,” he warned.

“We are still too slow and not ambitious enough,” he added, urging a “powerful Europe”, which “is respected”, “ensures its security” and regains “its strategic autonomy”.

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